This is my early Christmas gift to my friends in the fandom- early, because we should share the love year round.

Chapter One

"An advance on my
check, John, that's all I'm askin'," Chas pleaded, following
close behind John as they walked down the brightly-lit street. The
whole road was decorated in wreaths and bright Christmas lights, the
smell of cinnamon thick in the air…it made John ill. It didn't
help that his apprentice was pestering him again, either.

"When you took the
job you told me a check every other week was just fine," John said
with a scowl. "I'm not going to start advancing your checks every
time you screw up."

Chas ran a few steps to
keep up, jumping over the feet of a homeless person sitting against
the side of a building. "I know that's what I said, but my
landlord is being pushy, and I still haven't paid the damage
deposit…"

John took a drag off
his cigarette, and then tossed it aside into the street, not giving
Chas an answer. Chas waited a few moments, trying to keep up, looking
at John expectantly.

"Please, John?
Please?" he begged, and John finally stopped walking.

"Sure, you can have
your check."

Chas's expression
brightened so much that John almost felt guilty. Almost. "Really?"

"Sure. If you can
find an employer willing to pay on the first day. Good luck."

John started walking
again, ignoring the devastated look on Chas's face. The kid was
naïve; he needed to learn that not everyone was going to cater
to him hand and foot in life because he was a pretty young teenage
boy. Life was hard, it wasn't going to get any easier, and John
wasn't going to sugar coat it for him.

He expected Chas to
follow him to do some more pleading; but when he turned and looked,
the kid was walking the other direction, head down, his hands stuffed
in his pockets. John snorted and lit another cigarette, continuing
his walk to home without hesitation. The kid would get over it.

He couldn't help,
though, the gnawing feeling of guilt deep inside. Not guilt from
refusing to give Chas his check early- guilt from the desires he'd
been harboring. Guilt because Chas's scent was intoxicating, guilt
because all John really wanted to do was find out if Chas's hair
was as soft and his skin was as smooth as it looked.

It was ridiculous. He
just needed to get laid or something.

"Sir? Some spare
change?" A homeless woman said, holding out her cup, breaking John
out of this thoughts. He sneered at her.

"Fuck off."

"Aw, come on, it's
Christmas Eve…"

John ignored her. Damn
homeless people, they always felt it was their right to get more
money just because it was a holiday. Well, fuck them. John didn't
even acknowledge Christmas anymore. He didn't see the point.
Everybody just acted cheerful, acted like they were happy, when it
was all just a pointless charade for the family to get together and
get free shit.

He breathed a sigh of
relief when he finally got out of the mayhem of the streets and into
his apartment. Now he could do what he did every year- get piss ass
drunk and ignore the world.

He did just that. He
spent the evening sitting around his apartment, his record player
filling the apartment with mellow lounge music, his whiskey supply
getting lower and lower.

"Damn Christmas,"
he muttered, hearing carolers outside his window singing something
about bells merrily ringing. He walked over and slammed the window
shut as loud as he could.

"An asshole, as
usual," a strange gravely voice said.

John reached into his
jacket for a gun or something and spun around- and he came face to
face with someone he hadn't seen in years.

His old partner. Harvey
Lukas.

He was barely
recognizable, though. Every inch of his skin was torn and bloody, he
was missing several fingers and toes, and his eyes were sunken in and
almost black. He had chains on every limb, dragging him down, and
once in a while, John caught a sight of the maggots crawling under
his skin. The smell was absolutely foul, enough to make John step
back.

"Constantine, you
still haven't learned a thing. Even after a trip to Hell."

John took a few moments
to gather his wits. "What earned you a field trip out of Hell,
Lukas? I wasn't aware that Lu was giving day passes."

Lukas smiled, his teeth
dangling, mostly rotted away. "I'm not out of Hell,' he said
with a shrug, a brand new gash opening up in his cheek even as he
spoke. "I'm just giving you a message."

"Well, hurry it up.
You're making this place smell like shit," John scowled, putting
on an act of bravado in the face of something that truly horrified
him. The shell of his handsome, young, brave partner, ravaged by
Hell.

"Unless you change
your ways, John…you're going to Hell."

"So I've heard."

"And unless you do
something, Chas will too."

John's expression
turned to one of angry confusion. "What the hell are you talking
about? That kid is practically an angel already."

Lukas laughed hoarsely.
"You have a chance to say you will change your ways, change to save
yourself and him. But if you don't promise me that, you'll be
receiving visitors tonight," Lukas said, his chains clinking.

John's eyes narrowed.
"Are you threatening me?"

Lukas smirked. "No,
John. I'm warning you."

"Bullshit. This is
bullshit."

"I somehow knew you
wouldn't take the easy road," Lukas said, and quick as that, he
was gone. The smell lingered, though, but John still wondered if it
was the alcohol causing hallucinations.

It didn't make much
sense, considering he'd had more than this before without serious
consequence, but he had to have something to blame it on.

As with every
Christmas, within a few hours, he was passed out on his bed.

Chapter Two

John woke up to a
strange, cool breeze. He groaned and forced his eyes open, looking
around the room.

The window he'd
closed before he went to bed was open again.

He was fully awake
within moments, dropping his psychic shields, searching the apartment
for some kind of presence. There was nothing there, though, and he
breathed a sigh of relief.

"Damn wind," he
muttered, walking to the window and closing it again, slamming it
even harder this time.

"Oh, John, don't be
so harsh. It's Christmas."

John spun around, about
to attack whoever it was that snuck into his apartment. He was
baffled, though, when it turned out to be a teenage girl, sitting on
his kitchen table, wearing a flowing white gown. She looked Filipino,
or something of the sort, with long black hair and dark brown eyes.

"Who the hell are
you?" John snapped.

"Constantine…I'm
the Ghost of Christmas Past. But you can just call me Wishie," the
girl said, hopping down off the table. John scowled at her as she
explored.

"Get out of my damn
house."

Wishie laughed lightly,
picking up a vial of holy water and turning it over in her hands.

"I don't want to
leave yet. I haven't shown you what you need to see, John."

"I don't need to
see a fuckin' thing when it's midnight. Get the hell out," John
snapped, trying to shake off the eerie similarities between this
visit and the visit from Lukas.

It's just the
alcohol playing tricks on you. You just need to sleep it off.

"I'm the Ghost of
Christmas Past. It's my job to show you what you may not know,"
Wishie said, stepping over to John and grabbing his wrist- and all of
a sudden, John wasn't in his apartment.

He was standing in the
living room of a house, a fire burning in the fireplace, a Christmas
tree standing in one corner of the room. Everything looked and felt
warm and cozy, and in the middle of the room, two little kids were
tearing into their Christmas presents.

One of the kids,
complete in blue duck pajamas with footies, looked very familiar.

"I've got the
camera!" a woman's voice said, and John turned to see a man and
woman walk in the room. The woman as exquisitely beautiful, Hispanic,
with long curly black hair, glowing tanned skin, and piercing hazel
eyes. The man looked like your average Joe, with brown hair and light
skin. Both were beaming at the sight of their children.

"Where am I?" John
asked Wishie, who had stepped up beside him.

"In the past,"
Wishie said simply.

"Can't they see
me?"

Wishie shook her head.
"No. They can't see you or hear you. What you're seeing is
untouched memories, Constantine."

John looked on as the
little girl clutched a stuffed unicorn she'd gotten. The girl
looked just like her mother, just as beautiful even though she
couldn't have been over six years old.

The little boy had
barely tanned skin and curly brown hair, features that were familiar
to John. What really gave it away, though, were the eyes. Huge, hazel
eyes, full of spark and optimism.

"Chas, hold that up
so Mommy can take a picture," the man said, and Chas dutifully held
up the book he'd unwrapped.

"Why did you bring me
here?" John asked, turning to Wishie. "What's the point?"

Wishie smiled. "You
have to figure that part out for yourself, John. It's not over
yet."

"Do you want your big
present now, Sasha? What about you, Chas?" the woman asked, and
Chas and his sister looked at each other with unabashed, childish
excitement, getting to their feet.

"Yeah!" they both
exclaimed at once, scrambling to their feet. Their mother opened the
door to the outside, and John found himself in the country, nothing
but rolling hills and fields outside the door.

He'd had no idea Chas
lived in the country before he came to LA. Absolutely no idea.

He gave Wishie a
confused look before following the excited children out the house.
The parents walked hand in hand toward the barn, the children
throwing out wild guesses as to what their surprise could be.

The father told the
kids to wait outside the barn, and they reluctantly did, their mother
keeping them corralled.

"This is ridiculous.
Take me back," John said, shaking his head.

"Not yet. Not for a
while yet," Wishie said as Chas's father exited the barn- a horse
in tow. A slender, grey horse with white speckles all over.

The kids absolutely
went crazy. John could tell this was something they'd begged and
pleaded for, something they'd wanted all their lives.

Then, suddenly, the
scene faded away and another one faded in.

They were standing by
the same barn, only the fields around it were mowed down, and nicer
fences had been built. Two horses were grazing in one paddock, while
in the other paddock, someone rode a galloping horse across the
field. John recognized it as the same horse from the Christmas
morning he'd seen, but the horse was taller and more muscular now.

As the horse and rider
got closer, John could easily tell it was a young Chas. Maybe 11 or
12.

He pulled the horse up
to the trough of water and let it take a drink, and after a few
moments there was the sound of a car pulling up in the gravel
driveway. Chas looked up, and John followed his gaze to see a police
car pulling up.

The horse snorted and
stamped its foot, and Chas shushed it and jumped down, tying the
horse to the fence post and walking out of the paddock to the car.
The cop got out, wringing his hat in his hands.

John wasn't close
enough to hear what they were saying, but moments later, Chas's jaw
dropped and he stumbled backward. As the cop tried to comfort him, he
collapsed to his knees, his body wracked with sobs.

Another blur of
nothingness, and then John was in a different house, a small, dirty
place.

"What the hell is
going on?" He asked Wishie. "What happened?"

"Car crash," Wishie
said matter-of-factly. "His parents were killed."

John felt a pang of
something he rarely felt for other people- sadness. "His sister?
Sasha?"

"Adopted by a family
in Wisconsin."

John swallowed hard.
"And Chas?"

"This is the first of
his four foster homes."

John watched as a
still-young Chas came in the room, a bruise on his jaw, clutching a
book to his chest. He glanced nervously over his shoulder, and then
headed for a chair in the corner, sitting down in it and beginning to
read.

He didn't have peace
for long. Moments later a woman came in the room, yelling at Chas in
rapid-fire Spanish.

John had always
wondered how Chas knew Spanish.

"Do you want to see
his next foster home?" Wishie asked, and John set his jaw and shook
his head.

"No. I want to go
home. This is stupid," he said, watching as Chas was dragged from
the room.

"You and I both know
that's not true."

"It's true. I want
to go home."

"One more home, John,
one more foster home."

That quick, they were
in a different place. Finally in LA, judging from the view out the
window of the dingy, dirty apartment they were in.

Chas was quite a bit
older now- in fact, John distinctly remembered that outfit. He looked
about 15 or 16, which means he would've been working for John for
at least a year by this point.

Chas was sitting at the
table, a book about demons opened to the chapter about remote
possession. Chas was working hard, taking notes, doing a translation.
Probably a translation John had asked him to do.

The door opened, and a
man walked right through John, one of his hands holding a beer, and
the other wrapped around a woman's waist. Both were quite obviously
drunk off their asses.

"Chas, go to your
damn room," the man said, and Chas looked up.

"I'm in the middle
of this, Tim. Can't it-"

"Go to your damn
room!"

Chas's fists
clenched, and he stood up and began to gather his books and papers
from the table, muttering as he did so. Tim took a swig from his
beer, shot a look at the girl with him, then grabbed Chas by the hair
and slammed him face first into the tabletop.

"Faster, come on,
out!" he demanded, and Chas gave up on the idea of taking his
stuff, instead just stumbling out of the room, one hand on his
now-bloody nose. John sneered and tried to grab onto Tim's
shoulder, aiming to turn him around and give him a good punch to the
face, but his hand went right through the man.

"Damnit, I didn't
know," John said, looking at Wishie, who simply shrugged.

"He didn't want you
to know. He only wanted to impress you."

John looked back at
Tim, who'd started a session of heavy petting with the woman right
on the kitchen table.

"Are you ready to
change your ways? Based on what you've seen?" Wishie asked,
touching John's arm. John realized just how mushy, how stupid
he was acting, and he shrugged her off.

"The kid came out of
it fine. I mean, look at him now. He has his own apartment, he's an
annoying little fucker, he does all the work I give him to do...I
don't have to change the way I treat him," he said stubbornly.
Wishie's smile, however, didn't fade. The girl seemed eternally
optimistic and bright…like Chas.

"Somehow I knew you'd
say something like that," she said, shaking her head. "You'll
have another visit tonight. My only hope is that you take this one to
heart, John."

John didn't have a
chance to speak before the room faded to black.

Chapter 3

When John woke up, he
was back in his own bed, in his completely sealed apartment. He sat
up with a gasp, looking around.

It was a dream. It had
all been a dream.

It was almost one in
the morning, but there was no way he was going to get back to sleep
after all that. He got up, groaning at the hint of a headache setting
in, and he headed for the kitchen and grabbed another bottle of
whiskey.

He walked to the
window, looking out at the deserted street. Everyone was home with
their families, either asleep waiting for Santa Clause or partying
like tomorrow would never come.

For a few moments, he
wondered what Chas was doing.

Probably out at a
nightclub or something. He's a teenager, he can entertain himself
on the holidays.

"Don't you have
anything good to eat? Like crumpets?"

John turned around, and
for the third time that night, a person had managed to sneak into his
apartment when everything was locked up tight. Only the first, if he
assumed the first two were hallucinations.

"Oh, come on. Get out
of there," John said, and the girl pulled her head out of the
refrigerator, holding a pint of ice cream.

"Looks like Chas is
the only one with good taste," she said, a British accent tinting
her speech. She was wearing a mis-matched, punky outfit and a polka
dot tie, and her dirty-blonde hair was slightly mussed.

"Who the hell are
you? Stop eating that, that's Chas's!" John demanded, grabbing
the ice cream from her and shoving it back in the fridge. She pouted.

"Just wanted a
snack."

"Who are you?"

She grinned, jumping up
to sit on the kitchen table. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present.
Or Kym, since your lazy ass probably can't remember that much,"
she said. "My friend told you I'd be coming."

"She didn't tell me
that all of you would be as annoying as Chas."

"Are you ready to
go?"

John quirked an
eyebrow. "Go? Go where? More stupid time-travel field trips?"

Kym smirked. "Field
trip, yes. Time travel, no. Come on," she said, grabbing onto
John's hand. The room spun, and John was standing on the streets of
LA, in a less than safe neighborhood.

"What are we doing
here?" John asked, looking around. Moments later, Chas almost ran
into him as he walked by.

"Chas! Hey, Chas!"
he called out, but Kym grabbed onto his arm.

"He can't hear you
or see you," she said, and John rolled his eyes, following after
Chas to at least see why he was in this part of town.

Chas slowed down and
stopped by a toy store, and John almost ran into him. The teenager
stared at the window display, which was an array of toy barns and
horses, even some fences. He put once hand on the window, squinting
to better see the toy horse by the barn, one of a majestic gray horse
with white speckles all over.

John watched on as Chas
sighed, and then the teen continued walking until he got to a
back-alley apartment building, and John stopped outside, unsure.

"He doesn't live
here. Does he?"

Kym nodded, a hot dog
having appeared in her hand out of nowhere. "He's lived here for
six months now. Only rent he can afford on what you pay him."

John scowled. "I pay
him plenty."

"You pay him minimum
wage, John. You're a bloody cheap asshole."

John ignored her
comment and walked inside, where Chas was arguing loudly in Spanish
with an older man. "What's going on?" he asked Kym.

"He's a few weeks
behind on his rent. That's his landlord."

John's fists
tightened as he watched the argument escalate, but eventually Chas
appeased the man by pulling out his wallet and shoving a couple of
twenties at him. The last money he had, from the looks of it.

John gave Kym a look,
but the girl seemed occupied with her snack. She only followed as he
went after Chas, following him up the stairs and past an unconscious
drunk to his apartment door.

Chas didn't bother
with a key- in this kind of neighborhood, locking your door was
pointless. He walked right in to the one room apartment and flipped
on the light, and the roaches scattered.

"Why didn't he just
tell me?" John asked Kym, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Because he thought
you were smart enough to figure it out on your own."

"That's stupid."

"No, John, that's
pride. He has a little bit of it left."

The apartment was
nothing more than a bed with no sheets and some stacked boxes,
nothing more. Chas got into one of the boxes, pulling out a can of
soup and peeling back the lid. He began to drink it cold, settling
down on the bed, looking out the window.

No wonder the kid had
lost weight recently. He'd had nothing to eat but cold soup and
what he could steal from John.

Quite suddenly, John
felt bad for every time he kicked Chas out. The kid was just trying
to get a decent meal.

"Okay, okay, I get
it. I'll give the kid a raise, okay?" John said, crossing his
arms. Kym laughed.

"You still don't
understand."

"I understand, I get
it, okay? He's got it rough. I'll give him a raise, help him find
a better place, and-"

John stopped
mid-sentence, not quite sure he was hearing correctly.

Chas was crying.

He'd never seen the
boy cry before. Chas always tried to be so brave and so tough around
him, that seeing the teenager curled up and in tears made John
increasingly uncomfortable.

"Alright. I said I
get it. Let's go," he said to Kym. Kym snorted and shook her
head.

"How can you be so
blind, John?"

John threw up his hands
in exasperation. "I can see just fine! I know you ghosts want me to
treat him better! I get it!"

Kym was silent for a
few moments, and then she smiled.

"You'll have one
more visitor, John. That will be your last chance."

Before John could
answer, he was unconscious once again.

Chapter 3

When John woke up, he
didn't have a break. A figure in a black cloak was already standing
at the foot of his bed.

"Oh, come on. The
vampire look doesn't scare me."

"Come with me," a
voice said, a voice that was young and quite obviously female.

"I don't want to
fuckin'-"

"You'll come with
me now."

John scowled, but
something told him he had to go. He didn't have a choice. And even
if he did…this was just something he had to do.

He stood up, watching
the girl suspiciously. She took a few steps toward him.

"Let me guess, the
Ghost of Christmas Future?" He asked, and she chuckled.

"You can call me
Veetee."

With that, she grabbed
onto his wrist, and the room swirled before reforming into a dingy
back alley. Chas's cab was sitting there, and Chas was leaning
against it…

Shooting up.

Chas was doing drugs.

"What the hell is
this?" John asked the hooded figure, stepping forward.

"This is six months
from today. One month after you fired him for repeatedly being late
and falling asleep at the wheel," the girl said.

"I wouldn't-"

"You did. The proof
is right there, John, if you'll open your eyes and look."

John looked closer.
There were no books on the dashboard of Chas's cab.

"He sold them all for
drugs," the girl said, as if reading his mind. "Drugs keep the
hunger away."

A man approached Chas,
looking down at both ends of the alley, making sure the coast was
clear. Chas tossed the syringe he'd been using into the cab.

"How much?" the man
asked quietly.

"Fifty."

"You raise the rates
on me?"

"Gotta have my fix,
man. You want this or not?"

The man grumbled, but
then dug into his wallet and pulled out fifty dollars, shoving them
at Chas. Chas shoved them in his pocket, and then…

…dropped to his
knees.

"Oh, fuck, no,"
John muttered as the man unzipped his pants. "Veetee, what the
hell…"

"You're the one who
fired him, John. Where's a high school dropout druggie going to
find a decent job around here?" Veetee asked calmly as Chas
set to work like a seasoned pro. The man's moans and demands grated
on John's ears like nails on a chalkboard.

"Stop this. Just…just
stop," John said, trying to tear his eyes off the sight as the man
grabbed Chas by the hair, forcing himself deeper into the
seventeen-year-old's mouth.

"We can do nothing to
stop this. It's already been done," Veetee said, and then their
surroundings blurred and reformed again. John suddenly found himself
in the hallway outside his own apartment.

Chas was standing
there, leaning against the door, a knife in one hand, a syringe in
the other. He was breathing hard, one arm bleeding from having
recently shot up, and he dropped the syringe to the ground. He looked
emaciated, worn, and he was covered in bruises and cuts.

"I loved you, John,"
he choked out through a sob. Then, John watched in horror as the boy
slit his wrists.

He tried to catch the
teen before he fell, and this time, his hands didn't go through
him. He lowered the boy to the floor, holding him close.

"John?" Chas said,
already weak and trembling.

"I'm here, kid, I'm
here. And I'm sorry," John said breathlessly, brushing Chas's
hair back from his face.

"I'm s-sorry…I
let you down…" Chas said as John wiped the tears from his cheeks.

He looked around, and
immediately stumbled out of bed and ran to the door, yanking it open.
No Chas.

Daylight was streaming
through the windows, lighting up his shirt…which was splashed with
blood.

He threw on a different
shirt, grabbed his wallet, and ran out the door and down to the
street.

"Excuse me, what day
is it?" He asked the first person he saw. She stared at him,
bewildered.

"It's Christmas
Day, sir," she said, and John thanked her and took off running.

He had to get to Chas.

On the way, though, he
made one pit stop.

He went to that toy
store, the one Chas had stopped at the night before, or so Chas had
seen. The horses were set up, the gray one still in its place right
by the barn. He saw a man in there, but the sign said closed.

He knocked on the
window and the man looked up, tried to wave him away. John was
persistent, though; he kept knocking on the window until the man
finally came and let him in.

"Listen, sir, we're
clos-" the man started, but John didn't let him finish.

"The gray horse in
the window. I need to buy it."

The man looked
confused. "Is that all?"

"Sometime today would
be nice," John snapped, pulling out some money. "How much?"

"18.99," the man
said, picking the horse out of the window. John took the horse and
shoved the money in the man's hand.

"Keep the change,"
he said, walking out.

"Wait, sir," the
man said and John turned around. The man tugged a big red bow off the
counter and held it out to him.

"For the gift."

John stared at the man,
then at the bow for a few moments before he grabbed it and tied it
onto the horse. He started to walk again.

"Merry Christmas,"
the man called after him. John paused, looked over his shoulder.

"Merry Christmas."

He walked as fast as he
could to Chas's apartment building. The same Latino man was
sleeping at the desk, and John went right by him, taking the stairs
up to Chas's room and knocking loudly.

"Who is it?" he
heard Chas call out, and he breathed a sigh of relief at hearing the
teenager's voice once again, alive and well.

"Chas, it's me."

A long silence. "John?"

"Yeah, it's me.
Come on, let me in."

He heard a shuffle
inside, and then the door opened a crack, just as John moved the
horse behind his back.

"John…this isn't
a good time…" Chas said nervously.

"Let me in, kid."

"But-"

"Please?"

Chas's eyes widened,
shocked at hearing the word 'please' leave John's lips. He
opened the door the rest of the way, his cheeks flushing with shame,
probably from the state of his apartment. John, however, ignored it.

"Listen, Chas, I just
wanted to say that…I'm sorry."

Chas looked confused.
"Sorry for…what?"

"For not advancing
your check. And for…for not knowing about your situation," John
said, gesturing to the apartment. Chas shrugged.

"I didn't expect
you to know. I didn't tell you."

"Either way, I'm
giving you a raise. How does nine bucks an hour sound?"

Chas's jaw dropped.
"I…uh…"

"And I'll advance
your check whenever you need it."

"John, what…why…"

John pulled the horse
from behind his back. "Merry Christmas, kid."

Chas stared silently at
the horse, and then he swallowed hard and reached out, gently
touching its mane.

"Take it. It's for
you, kid," John said, and Chas slowly and carefully took the horse
from him, blinking rapidly, obviously forcing back tears.

"How'd you know?"
he asked, his voice cracking.

"Let's just say…I
have friends in high places," John said. Chas bit his lower lip,
clutching the horse to him, and then he pulled John into a hug.

"Thank you," he
said, and John wrapped his arms around the boy, awkward at first and
then more relaxed. John pushed him back gently, still holding him by
the shoulders.

"If you ever get
yourself into a fix, you promise you'll come to me?"

"What's this
about?"

"Do you promise?"

Chas shrugged and
nodded. "Yeah, sure."

"Alright. Now, let's
get these boxes out to your cab."

Chas, still clutching
to the horse, looked up at John incredulously. "What?"